De Winne, 48, landed in Kazakhstan in a tiny module along with his Russian and Canadian colleagues Roman Romanenko and Robert Thirsk. After a six-month stay in space, he looked thin and pale but was otherwise healthy.

After landing, De Winne he remained for much of the time lying down, to avoid the shock of suddenly being subject to gravity again after being weightless for so long. One of the immediate effects of gravity is to pull the blood into the legs and away from the brain, heart and other organs. As usual in these situations, De Winne was placed on a tilting table which gradually brings him from a prone position to an angle of about 60 degrees, allowing the body to re-accustom itself to being upright.

De Winne was also subjected to a centrifuge chair, which spins 42 revolutions a minute to exert a force of 1G on the occupant. The purpose of the experiment is to see if the extra gravity helps astronauts recover more quickly. If so, it might be possible to use it to help combat the effects of ageing in ordinary people.

While on the mission, De Winne’s crew carried out a number of experiments, including looking at the effects of a vacuum on the production of soap bubbles and the development of an environmentally friendly soap and on the crystallisation of proteins for the production of medications. They also conducted practical tests on a wearable augmented-reality computer.

DeWinne, Romanenko and Thirsk left behind two remaining crew members, the Russian Maxim Surayev and the American Jeff Williams, who took over from De Winne as commander. Three more astronauts – from Russia, the US and Japan – will arrive on 23 December.

ISS facts and figures

•total distance travelled by Frank De Winne:
over 100 million kilometres
•length of mission: 188 days
•days served as mission commander: 46
•maximum altitude: 400km
•time taken to descend in landing module:
3.5 hours